That's a fine point that I generally agree with, but ultimately hindsight in this situation, I would think, has to prove that Schueler accurately scouted his own prospects and deemed it was better in the long haul to hold on to them rather than push all the chips in with a deeply flawed 2000 team.

Just my

I think you are right that Schueler was correct not to trade away young prospects like Rowand, Crede, Garland, Buehrle, etc. in 2000, as they became cogs of the 2005 team.

But the hindsight of history also shows Schueler was wrong in 1991, 92, 93, 96 and 97, not to acquire needed bats or arms by trading his prized draft choice prospects that usually amounted to nothing. As I recall, the only Sox-developed prospects that did pan out during the 90s (after the Larry Himes wave of drafted/acquired talent that included McDowell, Ventura, Frank, Fernandez, Alvarez, Hernandez and Baldwin) were Ray Durham and Mike Cameron (whom he did deal for PK, a move that worked out pretty well).

So, both Doub and Lip are correct. In honor of Jerry Manuel, let's go have ice cream.

__________________The universe is the practical joke of the General at the expense of the Particular, quoth Frater Perdurabo, and laughed. The disciples nearest him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow. Others laughed, seeing the Universal Joke. Others wept. Others laughed. Others wept because they couldn't see the Joke, and others laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke. But though FRATER laughed openly, he wept secretly; and really he neither laughed nor wept. Nor did he mean what he said.